I am replacing the dissolved spider support on my washer (yes, I have to buy the whole %$#$ tub.)

I am looking for some advice on coating the aluminum and/or zinc spider support to increase it's life.

FYI, I do have a can of commercial aluminum etching primer that may be useful for this purpose. I will have to dig for a better product description that that through my garage rubble. I remember seeing lots of warnings on the can. I probably am not qualified to spray it (smile).

The model number is Canadian. The manual will come up if you pop it into the frigidaire (probably Canadian fridgidair, I don't remember) site.


The stainless drum is guaranteed but the aluminum part that dissolves is not covered....amazingly, you have to buy it as a unit still.

oh..and it's not a duet. thanks.

Assembly

It was a lot of work but allowed me to appreciate that other than it's 'made to decay' part, it was well engineered. The motor and drive pulley design and quality are just incredible to view. My only other issue is that they could have put the motor control board a bit higher or protected it better from a water leaking accident.

Spider Shaft

As for making out of an aluminum iron mixture and not protecting it with a coating is just nasty. Older models with steel would have had baked on enamel. How could they possible think that making it out of AL FE would be ok. Metal and water have 'never never never' been a good combination in any manner. ...and...they still use it.

The Sears Gnome said they have sold over 500,000 of these units with few reported problems. i guess the don't use Google but only they know how many spare parts they sell. Lots of $$$$ for them. Even if they have a 5 percent premature failure rate, that would be 25,000 customers ripped off. I would guess this rate to be higher than 25 percent..but that's just a guess. People raising children with heavy usage are the ones to mainly be hit.

Powder coating

I got my spider arm back from powder coating and it looks great. It's almost a shame to have to bury it in my machine (smile). The guy asked what it was for and matched a coating type to suit. It cost me massive sum of 20 bucks. So, for 20 bucks, Frigidaire could have doubled the life of my machine. thanks for nothing guys.

I sandblasted the spider arm (masking the shaft) and upon further inspection noticed that the casting was quite poor along the mold parting line and required a lot of work to remove the pits and irregularities that would could allow fractures to start.

Balance??

The service gnome at Sears said that the unit had to be sold with the stainless steel drumming as it was balanced. Surprisingly, there were no signs of balancing on the new unit....shocking. As well, I think the balance excuse is dumb for:
a. The spider arm is attached to a far from rigid stainless drum.
b. Clothes will be in this slopping around with water.

I am guessing that they may do a very rough balance check on the unit but they could safely sell the spider arm only without issues. I have some pics of my powder coated spider gear if anyone wants to check them out. If so, point me to a place where I could post em.

I know that the spyder on these units HAS been a problem, HOWEVER, If one uses the correct amount(1/4 cap or LESS) of HE soap, and has water with a softness of 2grains or less the spyder will last for 12-15yrs with NO PROBLEMS!!!! Powder coating will not survive this type of punishment. the spyder flexes under load and the powder coat will crack and trap water,accelerating the failure of the spyder!!! Let us know how you make out!!!:)

I'm in the midst of changing out the stainless drum and spyder because the spyder cracked apart from 2 of the 3 legs. I wonder if our use of powder HE soap advanced the failure because leftover powdered soap was caked up in the grooves of the spyder where the failure occurred. I'm wondering if the leftover soap always stayed damp, which advanced the corrosion after only 3-1/2 years of use. Perhaps I will now use liquid HE soap instead of powder which I hope will help the unit last longer than the last spyder.